So a client asked me to upgrade their ESXi server from 5.1 to 5.5. Fairly straight forward if you rememeber this:

Update vCenter to 5.5,

Update vSphere Update Manager to 5.5,

Lastly update ESXi to 5.5.

So lets get going:

Update vCentre:

Firstly download the vCentre ISO: VMware-VIMSetup-all-5.5.0-2183112-20140901-update02.iso (or what ever is the latest version).

Logon to your vCentre server and run the ISO.

If all the components of the existing vCenter Server infrastructure are installed on the same machine, the easiest and fastest upgrade way it to select Simple Install on VMware vCenter 5.5 Installer screen. Remember that upgrading from 5.0 or 5.1 is much easier as SSO will be already installed and the upgrade of SSO will be almost seamless.
It will upgrade all necessary components of vCenter Server, starting with SSO. As you can see, I am upgrading from a version with SSO already installed (i.e. 5.1) so it says it will upgrade it.

After a few checks the upgrade process for SSO will start making sure that SSO users, groups and Lookup Services are migrated. The previous version will be uninstalled and the new one configured:
After Web Client, the next element is Inventory Service. You’ll be asked if you want to keep or overwrite your database:

And now vCenter Server itself will be upgraded:
After asking if the vCenter Server database should be upgraded
the installer will ask you a few other questions like if host agents should be updated automatically once vCenter Server upgrade is done or which account vCenter Server service should run on as well as you will be able to customized port used by vCenter Server. Finally the upgrade starts:
and the whole process completes successfully:
Once the vSphere Client is upgraded, you can check version of your vCenter Server:
Done. Almost everything has been done automatically and we were asked only for necessary information. If you want to have much more control over the upgrade process or if your vCenter Server components are installed on different machines, check the next post in the series when I show how to upgrade them.

Udate vSphere Update Manager:

Run the ISO again and choose Vsphere Update manager:

Tick the download if you have a internet connection:

Type your password for your installation:

Update:

Next through:

The installation will take the service off line so make sure no other Admins are working. Once finished you need to update your client.

vSphere Update Manager client update:

Open the vSphere Client, and log into the vCenter

From Plug-ins menu, select Manage Plug-ins

This should show the plug-in manager, that will show the VMware vSphere Update Manager, and blue link to download and install the plug-in.
At the end of the install, the plug-in will attempt to connect to the VUM server, accept the default certificate that is presented.

Note: This should add an Update Manager icon to the “Solutions and Application” portion of the vSphere Client:

Click on Browse and browse towards the ESXi 5.5 ISO image from your system and click on Next

Import ESXi Image wizard will detect the ESXi 5.5 information and click on Next to complete the Import.

Create a New Baseline for ESXi host upgrade.Enter the name ,description and Select Host Upgrade under Host baselines and click on Next

Select the ESXi Image to be included as part of this Upgrade baseline and click on Next.

Review the information for this baseline and click on Finish.

Select the cluster or Host to attach the newly created Host upgrade Baseline. Select the Update Manager tab and click on Attach. Select the checkbox for the baseline to attach to the Host. I am attaching this host upgrade baseline to my ESXi 5.5 host 192.168.1.1. Click on Attach

Click on Scan to check the compliance for the Host against the attached baseline.

If the attached baseline is applicable to the selected Host, Click on Remediate and click on Next.

Accept the End user License Agreement for this ESXi 5.5 upgrade and click on Next.

Verify the Upgrade settings.Select the checkbox if you want to remove the installed third-party software that is incompatible with the upgrade, and continue with the remediation and click on Next.

Enter the Task name and description. If you want to perform this upgrade in later time,Select the checkbox At time and define the time. I am doing it with immediately option. Click on Next.

Specify the Host Remediation option as per your requirement and click on Next.

Specify the cluster Remediation options as per your requirement and click on Next.

Review the selected remediation settings and click on Finish to start the Upgrade process.

Had a problem where the backups to SAN where SLOW, I mean really slow….a 1TB server was taking 12 hours to complete and killing the servers performance!

So after talking with Veeam they checked out our logs and mentioned when we switched vCenters and reregistered our VM’s it seemed to have changed the ID (oldChangeId and curChangeId differed) meaning change block tracking or CBT was set to false (IsChangeTrackingAllowed: FALSE) and so tracking of what blocks had changed wouldn’t work and so meaning our backups crawled!!

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